In the past, categorization of facial features, methods for making up the eyes, or methods for selecting foundations that reproduce natural skin color have been proposed for the purpose of advantageously using in beauty methods. For example, Japanese Patent No. 3529954 discloses a method for determining facial features and categorizing individual features according to face length, the arrangement of formal elements of the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and nose, and the contour shape of those formal elements, and a facial feature categorizing map composed of coordinates generated based on that categorizing method. However, this method for categorizing facial features categorizes formal elements of the entire face based on their arrangement or contour shape, and was unable to be applied to categorizing the lips only.
Japanese Patent No. 3423311 proposes an eye makeup method composed of determining a personalized color based on the glossy color of the iris of the eyes to be made up, a contour color or an impression color, selecting a makeup product that matches the determined personalized color, such as respectively selecting a contour color for the eye liner, an impression color for the mascara, and a glossy color for the eye shadow and lipstick, and applying to each zone of the face. In this makeup method, it is proposed that the makeup product in the form of lipstick applied to the lips be matched to the glossy color of the iris of the eyes. However, this eye makeup method was developed for the purpose of being applied to Westerners having a diverse range of iris colors, and was unable to be applied as a makeup method for Japanese basically composed of black.
In addition, Japanese Patent No. 2986214 proposes a method and apparatus for determining a foundation color for reproducing natural human skin color by generating a database of combinations of skin colors of the inside of the arm, outside of the arm or intermediate region of the two and foundation colors relating to those skin colors, measuring the skin color of a specific person, comparing the measured skin color with skin colors stored in the database, selecting a skin color that approximates the measured skin color, and determining a corresponding skin color based on the selected skin color. However, although this method is suitable for selecting a foundation color that reproduces the inherent color of human skin, it was unable to be applied to a lip makeup method that must take into consideration shape, mouth width, ratio of the upper and lower lips and so on as elements used when applying makeup.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-206099 proposes a method for aesthetically categorizing lips by defining the width of the lips relative to the width of the face as a shape index, and defining the area of the lips determined as the product of the absolute length and width of the lips as a size index. However, since this categorizing method is unable to determine formal differences between lips, it was not advantageous for proposing a makeup method for correcting lip form. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-202754 proposes a lip color advice system for finding and displaying a lip color that matches customer skin color data, group data and makeup image data by generating a database of facial skin color data, group data in which color preferences of people are grouped based on tolerance with respect to color, data on the desired makeup image of the user, and lip colors suitable for makeup images corresponding to this data. This lip color advice system merely proposes the selection of a suitable lip color, and does not propose a method for attractively making up the lips while correcting lip form.